Knife crime in the United Kingdom has become serious enough that the Government has set up dedicated courts to deal with it faster.
These blitz courts, launched in London from April 2026, initially focused on assaults on emergency workers including police, prison staff, NHS and ambulance personnel. A total of 500 days have been allocated for this first initiative, handling cases at pace. The courts have since been expanded to accelerate all weapons offences where suspects have been caught in possession of knives, as well as serious violence and robbery, which overlap significantly with knife crime incidents.
The Government has set a stated mission to halve knife crime within a decade, describing the situation as a national crisis. To support this, £26 million has been committed to flood high-crime areas with patrols and CCTV, and the Home Office is now mapping knife crime hotspots down to specific geographical areas to direct resources more effectively.
Knife crime is not a new phenomenon. It has been an increasing issue for a number of years. But it is now a national conversation, repeatedly reported in the press and debated in Parliament. And we are seeing the impact of it directly in our order books.
What is driving demand for protective clothing?
The increase in knife crime has led to a significant and sustained increase in demand for cut resistant clothing and gloves across every sector we supply. Police forces, security companies, schools, NHS trusts and care homes are all buying more than they were five years ago. Members of the public are buying more too.
54,587 knife crime offences were recorded in England and Wales in 2024. The Metropolitan Police alone recorded 16,789 of those, a 16 percent increase on the previous year. These are the conditions in which the people we supply go to work every day. It is not surprising that they are looking at what practical protection is available to them.
What is perhaps more surprising is that it has taken this long for protective clothing to become a mainstream consideration. In many other countries, personal protection products are far more widely used. The UK is catching up quickly.
What Bladerunner does about it
At Bladerunner we specialise in providing knife and cut resistant clothing that looks like ordinary streetwear. The point is protection that does not announce itself. A jacket that looks like a jacket. A T-shirt that looks like a T-shirt. A Kevlar lined garment that does its job without anyone knowing it is there.
View Our Cut Resistant Clothing
The Bladerunner range includes knife resistant T-shirts, anti-cut hooded tops, Kevlar lined long johns and Spectra lined V-neck T-shirts. Each product is designed around the same brief. Serious protection that is comfortable enough to wear all day and discreet enough that no one knows you are wearing it.
Read More About Our Kevlar Lined Clothing Range
What to do if you are confronted
When we discuss the knife crime issue with potential customers and they ask what they can do to protect themselves, our answer is always the same. Try to run. Get into the nearest shop or occupied building if you can. That is always the first option and the right one.
But it is not always possible. You may not see the threat coming. You may be in a situation where running is not an option. If you are wearing one of our blade resistant garments, it will at least give you a measure of protection in a situation where you would otherwise have none.
The same principle applies to the people who wear our products as part of their job. A security officer working a venue. A police officer responding to a call. A teacher dealing with a student who has brought a weapon into school. These situations happen. The question is whether the people facing them have any protection at all.
Protecting the hands
Of course, clothing alone is not enough. The hands often suffer the worst damage in a knife attack. The natural instinct when confronted with a blade is to grab it and steer it away from the body. It is an instinct that can cost people their fingers, their hands, or worse.
This is why our cut resistant gloves are so essential. We have sold tens of thousands of our cut resistant police gloves to forces across the UK. Our security gloves are used by door staff throughout the country. Both are designed to be thin enough to wear all day, flexible enough to work in, and strong enough to matter when it counts.
Cut Resistant Gloves For Security Staff
All of our gloves are certified under EN388:2016, the European standard for cut and slash
resistance. Our police and security gloves are rated Level 5, the highest level achievable
under that standard.
Who is buying Bladerunner clothing?
We supply UK police forces, the Ministry of Defence, the NHS, schools, security companies and care homes both in the United Kingdom and internationally. We also sell directly to members of the public who have made a practical decision about their own safety.
The profile of our customers has changed over the years. It used to be almost exclusively professional and institutional. Police forces, security companies, specialist units. Now we are seeing a much wider range of buyers. Parents buying gloves for adult children who commute late at night. Lone workers who travel to unfamiliar areas. People who live or work in areas where knife crime is a daily reality.
Schools are perhaps the most striking example of how the situation has changed. Schools purchasing cut resistant protective clothing for their staff was not something we would have anticipated even five years ago. It is now a regular part of our business.
The motto throughout professions where people face inherent safety risks has always been the same.
Better to have it and not need it than to need it and not have it.
That principle applies as much to the individual member of the public walking home late at night as it does to the police officer responding to a knife call. The threat is real, it is documented and it is increasing. The Government is taking it seriously. So are our customers.
If you would like to know more about any of our products, please visit bladerunner.tv.
